In remembrance of a life cut short

 

Sometimes I find it very difficult to keep a smile on my face. Even if I stand upside-down my smile will disappear, or turn right-side up, depending on whether you are standing on your head or on your feet. In any event the smile is not there anymore. 

When I was younger, if I felt down in the dumps, I would go down to the candy store – every elementary school had a candy store next door – and fork over a nickel and get waxed lips. My candy store of choice was next to the East Ward School in Schuylkill Haven.  Those lips worked for awhile. I could put a smile on my face, at least  until I needed to open my mouth.  After awhile I would eat the waxed lips rather than throw them out.  I never figured the nutritional value of waxed lips.  I must have devoured a ton of them over the years.

 

Today was one of those days in Schuylkill County that I found hard to smile.  A bright, young man with so much promise… taken away by a member of the taliban in far-away Afghanistan.

             I think I am too old now to wear waxed lips to my hide unhappiness even if I could get my hands on some waxed lips.  I recently heard that Pottsville's Surgeon-General had issued warnings about those wax lips. He said they attract near-sighted Zamundian honey bees. The bees, as we all  know, came to America in 1988 by accident when the crown prince of Zamuda visited the American Way Fair. 

           Most of the candy stores next to elementary schools are now gone and I am too lazy to wait in line at Walmart; even though I get to ride in that store on a scooter, along with so many others who ate too much funnel cake and pepperoni pizza over the years. 

Anyway, today's young people are too sophisticated for waxed lips when they can now get tattoos and collagen lip enhancement treatments paid by their parents' medical insurance up to age 26 or through taxpayer funded medical assistance.

  It is the 21st century and Pottsville’s Surgeon General says it is healthy to express one’s feelings rather than hold them in.  So have sworn off waxed lips forever. I will now express myself. So here it goes....

 My problem right now is the struggle that I have with the disharmony between my search for meaning in life and the harsh realities, cruelties and the sometimes meaninglessness that confront us daily. 

Today was one of those days in Schuylkill County as I stood with so many others in line to pay respect to the fallen young hero.  It was a beautiful and sunny day.  A good day for the Belmont Stakes but certainly too nice of a day for a funeral. 

What keeps me going is the lesson I learned from reading Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut.  One must live as a time traveler passing back and forth in time, focusing on the good times, whether past, present or future, but realizing that bad times will be unavoidable along the way. Just don't dwell on them. 

 

 One must also remain wary of antithetical concepts, such as good and evil.  Most of us would want good, but we must remember that good is defined by the existence of evil.  There is evil out there. Always was and always will be. We just have to gravitate towards the good. Keep a moral compass handy at all times.

Today I did not have to time travel.  Today I saw good in Schuylkill County, right here in the present moment in this county where neighbors gathered together from all the county's small communities. Orwigsburg especially felt the pain.  It was unfortunate that the harsh reality of evil brought it to the forefront but good was there. It was up and down West Market Street. Goodness was visible and evil was nowhere to be found.

 On a day that was too nice to be day for a funeral, the sun was shining but so was the goodness in people.  The goodness was apparent on the faces of the countless people standing in line or the people who slowed down while driving by in their vehicles.

Why even the disheveled street people who roost on the other side of Market Street were curious and respectful.

Please keep the young man, who had so much promise, in your thoughts and prayers. He was a credit to the county and the nation.

Quit dwelling on your facebook pages, tweets and your selfie photographs for just a little while.  There will always be time to update your facebook status later when you can tell the world that you had scrapple and scrambled eggs for breakfast which will trigger dozens of insincere "likes" from your hundreds of so-called cyber friends.  

Yes, there will always be time for fun, maybe even time for a little beer pong now and then,  but do try and do something  positive in the world in the small amount of time you are allotted.
 

                           Don't waste it on all on self-absorption.

 

If the world seems too vast and you are as geographically challenged as me, then just do something positive in this small rectangular speck of the universe we call Schuylkill County.  

 

 

 

 

 

The Tale of Nutkin the Squirrel

Dear Mr. Trout:

Can you please tell us about the rodent that ended up in the county court a few years ago? Is he still around?

Sincerely,

Aiden Jayden McCool

Girardville, PA.

Dear Mr. McCool:

I believe you are referring to Nutkin the Squirrel, who made all the headlines a few years ago. Some of you may be unfamiliar with him, and/or have short attention spans. Well, here is the lowdown.

Apparently, when the Patriot Act became law in 2000, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft came down hard on Nutkin, the gray squirrel, who was living in Orwigsburg. It seems that the Patriot Act, which permits detention and deportation, had been broadly construed to include, not only humans, but also Sciurus carolinensis, better known as the eastern gray squirrel. Weeks earlier, I lectured against the Patriot Act at The Leiderkrantz Hall on Norwegian Street in Pottsville; I predicted that it could be used as a dragnet to round up the animal members of our beloved community that we call Schuylkill County.

No one listened to me.

I tried to inform my audience that Nutkin had been living in the Orwigsburg and had been totally acculturated to Schuylkill County. He no longer thought of himself as a Carolina squirrel. He had become a Skook; he had become one of us. He now preferred pierogies and funnel cake over acorns. While this made the law officials more determined, the Liederkrantz crowd was more interested in drinking Yuengling and singing old German songs.
Yes, several Decembers ago the Immigration officers arrived at The Nutty Pear Restaurant on Adamsdale Road. With that knock on the door, the Carolina squirrel dropped his hot Irish nut mixed drink and went out the back door. The burly Chief of Immigration turned to his fellow officers and yelled:

“Listen up, ladies and gentlemen. Our fugitive has been on the run for 90 minutes. Average foot speed over unever ground barring injuries is four miles per hour; that gives us a radius of six miles. What I want out of each and every one of you is a hard target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area. Checkpoints go up at fifteen miles. Your fugitive's name is Nutkin J. Squirrel. Go get him!”

Squirrels are most active in late winter when the mating season begins. In fact Nutkin was at the Nutty Pear in hopes of getting lucky that night. The spry rodent eluded the feds, but was spotted at Renninger’s Market the next afternoon trying to pass a bad check at a natural foods stand. He quickly hijacked the STS Cabella’s bus and headed north on Route 61 at a dangerously high rate of speed, but as there were no passengers aboard, no one was hurt. Abandoning the bus in Pottsville at the site of the planned intermodal bus station, Nutkin then blended into the stream of the one or two passer-bys walking on Centre Street. Within an hour, the Immigration officers then stormed the abandoned Atkins Building under the assumption that the place would be a natural hideout for the furry fugitive.

They were wrong.

Nutkin had entered the packed Majestic Theater and watched the Clark Gable film matinee, Manhattan Melodrama. Squirrels primarily rest in the afternoons, so the renovated theatre was the perfect mid-afternoon location for him as well as a few courthouse employees.

Despite the fact that the sweat glands of a tree squirrel are located on their feet, the city police's bloodhounds could not pick out his scent from others wandering about on Centre Street. Once again, Nutkin had did the impossible, he eluded the massive police hunt.

Days went by. It was rumored that the fugitive had landed a Section 8 apartment under an alias and assumed various identities. He would sometimes impersonate a pediatrician, an attorney, a pilot at Joe Zerbe International Airport, or a professor at Penn State Schuylkill, where he taught one full semester of Philosophy. Students there described him as “nutty” or “squirrelly.” One freshman gave the following account, “he had a slender body, a gray belly with a thick bushy tail, but he was a damn good professor. He taught me the meaning of life. Aren't we are all squirrels trying to get a nut?”
Nutkin apparently lived a charmed life in the county seat for many months bouncing from one occupation to another. The fascinating rogue rodent loved the challenge of taunting local law enforcement officers.
The thrill of escape boosted his furry ego. He had an uncanny ability to, first bait, and then elude the law enforcement authorities at the last minute during their game of "cat and squirrel." His notoriety became widespread. He was featured on the Fox Show “America’s Most Wanted: The Hunt For Nutkin” and “When Good Squirrels Go Bad.”

But he finally got caught. Skateboarding illegally on Center Street. The case ended up in court and the county judge threw the book at him. He was sentenced to be hanged in the prison yard and then led away by the Deputies in leg irons. The Food Channel got exclusive rights to cover the event for its upcoming Pennsylvania Dutch Special, “Preparing Squirrel Sauerkraut Casserole.” However his appeal to a higher court paid off and he scampered away on a technicality -the skateboard had not been properly identified.
Where is Nutkin today? It is believed that the rodent is still at large in the county, taunting us, assuming some new identity. He now ranks among the most notorious rodents in Schuylkill County history. Look around. He could next to you at this very moment.

Hold on to your..... acorns.